Painting Keith Brymer Jones
at the Gladstone Pottery Museum
At a party a friend asked me who I'd like to paint if I could choose to paint 'anyone'.
I said, 'Keith Brymer Jones'.
So I contacted his agent, asked, and he said yes.
I wanted to paint Keith because he has a very distinctive look, and the colours I associate with him, blues and greys work well with my palette. I knew I could paint him well, his personality would suit my style of portraiture. Plus, he seems really nice, that's a good enough reason on its own.
Keith invited me to come to the Gladstone Pottery Museum during a rest day off filming the 'Great Pottery Throwdown'. We spent the afternoon exploring possible sites for the portrait, taking lots of photos and talking about the show, creativity and our shared love of clothing; he admired my jacket from Yarmouth Oilskins.
I paint from photos that I take myself, and the paintings are usually painted from an amalgamation of different images, arranged to get the impact I want. This was the case with the portraits of Keith. The photos montage I used will never be shared, but I can tell you that the heads, for example, were not originally attached to the bodies in these pictures.
It took me three months to paint four portraits. Two are of Keith making tiles which he is using to decorate part of the chapel he was renovating in Pwllheli. The others are more formal poses, where Keith is sitting in the colour room at the Gladstone Pottery Museum which contains ceramic jars filled with powdered glazes.
Keith wanted to follow the process of the portrait production so I shared many process pictures via WhatsApp, and showed him how the final paintings came out too.
Once finished we arranged another meet up, this time at Salem Capel his new home and pottery in Pwllheli in Wales. Marj, Keith's partner and conspirator also cast her critical eye over the finished articles.
I'm please to say they seemed to like them.